Flaying

Did You Know?

• Typical causes of death from flaying include shock, critical loss of blood or other body fluids, hypothermia, or infections.
• Death from flaying is estimated to occur from a few hours up to a few days after the procedure.
• Hypothermia is possible because skin provides natural insulation essential for maintaining body temperature.

Scope

Flaying of dead animals, more commonly called skinning, is done to prepare them as human food or for their hide or fur. Human flaying is used as torture or execution depending on how much skin is removed, often referred to as flaying alive. Flaying after death also occurs, generally to debase the corpse of a prominent enemy or criminal, sometimes for metaphysical reasons or to deny an afterlife, and the skin may be used for deterrence, esoteric, or ritualistic purposes, as with scalping.

History

Flaying, the removal of skin from a human body, has a long recorded history. In the Neo-Assyrian Empire, carvings and royal decrees from the reign of Ashurnasirpal II depict the practice, with the process sometimes starting on the lower leg, thighs, or buttocks. The kings boasted of flaying rebel leaders; one inscription describes corpses hung on stakes, their skins taken off and used to cover a city wall. In medieval Europe, searing or cutting flesh from the body was a public punishment for traitors, and a similar method was used in early 18th-century France, as recounted by Michel Foucault. In 1303, after a robbery of King Edward I's money from Westminster Abbey's treasury, three monks were found guilty and flayed; their skins were nailed to three doors as a deterrent. Human skin is also said to have been found on an old door at St Michael & All Angels Church in Copford, Essex. In Chinese history, rulers such as Sun Hao, Fu Sheng, and Gao Heng removed skin from people's faces. The Hongwu Emperor flayed officials who embezzled more than 60 taels of silver, and Hai Rui suggested his emperor do the same. The Zhengde Emperor flayed six rebels, and Zhang Xianzhong flayed many people. The writer Lu Xun noted that the Ming dynasty began and ended with flaying.